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Boeing: 787 will need minor changes; schedule impact unknown

Boeing will make “minor design changes” to power distribution panels on the 787 Dreamliner and update systems software that manages and protects power distribution on the airplane in response to the fire earlier this month on the second flight-test 787, the company announced Wednesday.

Boeing said it did not yet know how long it would take to implement the changes and would finalized a revised program schedule “in the next few weeks.” There will be a delay; the question is, how long?

“We have successfully simulated key aspects of the onboard event in our laboratory and are moving forward with developing design fixes,” Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of the 787 program, said in a statement. “Boeing is developing a plan to enable a return to 787 flight test activities and will present it to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration as soon as it is complete.”

Boeing previously said a failure on the P100 power distribution panel sparked the fire, which spread to an insulation blanket in the 787, ZA002, as it approached Laredo, Texas. The P100 panel, one of five major power distribution panels on the 787, receives power from the left engine and distributes it to an array of systems.

On Wednesday, the company said engineers have determined that the fault began as either a short circuit or an electrical arc in the panel, most likely caused by the presence of foreign debris.

The design changes will improve protection in the panel and software changes will further improve fault protection, Boeing said.

“Our team is focused on developing these changes and moving forward with the flight test program,” said Fancher. “The team in Laredo is also well along in preparing to return ZA002 to Seattle.”

As for the impact of first delivery, previously planned for the middle of the first quarter, Tinseth wrote: “That is under review now by the program and as soon as we have a definitive answer, we’ll share it with you.”

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